But one thing to admit, it's easy and simple to make, but it's not quick. Too many things to chop (the onions, the tomatoes, the cucumber) and green peas to boil and beans & chickpeas to toast. It helps to have a super chopper that I recently purchased online. That makes the idiot like me chop like a pro.

I have plenty of all these ingredients, therefore I made a bigger batch this time and store them in the fridge. The next time I want to eat them (which is tomorrow), I will only need to whip up the dressing and sprinkle on the parsley.

I love this salad, I think I should definitely bring this if I ever go to picnic. (In my dream! Who the hell go to picnic in such inhumane weather!)

I haven't felt much differences up till 6 months pregnant. But by now, I perspire by sitting around the room, as long as I'm not under that high powered fan. Some days it's so freaking hot, I can't live without air-conditioner. And I'm truly convinced that air-conditioner made to the no.1 best invention to human's life ever in this modern world!!

If air-conditioner made into no.1, washing machine and dryer must have come next. With this new pregnancy symptom, not only the air-con/fan are constantly switched on, I have to do more laundry than ever. I kept changing clothes so often, I have to wash them much more often than before.

Besides, I use handkerchief at home to wipe my sweats (my friend told me just use towel), especially after yoga or after spending even a few minutes in the kitchen, perhaps just to make a glass of smoothie. Imagine the scene where I cook 3 Chinese stir fry dishes, or baking a cake, or cooking a soup, or worse -- having clothes in dryer, cake baking in oven, soup simmering on stove or slow cooking, all at once in the kitchen! That actually happened before, and I was drenched like I ran home in rain.

The Man tried to convince me that we can install a fan in the kitchen, but I refused. It's really sweet that he's such thoughtful but the potential of oily blades on fan really put me off. Besides, I kept telling him, it's going to be temporary, 2 months later, I'm off pregnant, and I think my condition will get back to normal. Well, my normal, not your normal. That means still sweat, just lesser extend compared to what I have now.

2014年7月27日星期日

I can't tell for sure if it's a good thing to always turn on Asian Food Channel or Food Network. The perk is that I get to try some recipes, or ask my mom to try :P. The downside of it is that I think sooner or later, we'll see the increasing waistline, which is bad, soooooo bad!

But, I still try them anyway. (And always end up with guilt and more exercise)

Well baked bread pudding

It was actually a chocolate chip bread pudding. I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I decided, heck it, I'll try them anyway. The recipe also calls for rum, but of course a pregnant woman should stay away from alcohol. So no no to rum.

I have stale bread, I have enough French baguette to make this. So really, what the heck, try them anyway!

Imagine eating the hot sumptuous dish in a winter night... But I can only imagine

I never liked pudding to be honest, but a home made one wasn't that bad because I get to control how sweet I want them to be. I would prefer them to be slightly dryer, I guess I'll reduce the custard the next time I make this. And I'm sure gonna put in some chocolates.

However, with or without the chocolate chips, they smell really great!

(Perhaps this can be in my yearly Christmas party menu. In which, I highly doubt the possibility of holding one this year)

2014年7月20日星期日

What's better than waking up on weekends with prepared batter for pancakes? Well, prepared breakfast!

For my case, there will only be prepared batter. I couldn't resist to buy a 600ml of butter milk from supermarket yesterday. I've came across this so many times when buying milk or yogurt in chilled section but never bought. I'm curious but never try.

And then, I watched French Food at Home by Laura Calder yesterday morning, and saw how she used butter milk to make one of the most beautiful scrambled eggs with it. And I thought, well, why not?

That's how the 600ml butter milk ended up in my fridge.

Before I moved on to the scrambled egg, I saw the blueberry pancakes recipes on the butter milk packaging. I did not have enough blueberries in the fridge for the flavoured pancakes, so I made the plain versions of it, and to go with the blueberries that have left in fridge.

Let me share the amended version recipe here:

Ingredients (for 10 pancakes):

1.5 cups self raising flour

2 tbsp caster sugar

375ml butter milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tbsp melted butter

Method:

Sift flour into a bowl.

Add sugar, butter milk, egg and butter. (Make sure all the ingredients are in room temperature)

Beat and mix the ingredients until the batter is smooth.

Preheat a non stick pan, and oil then pan over a medium heat.

Cook the pancake one at a time by pouring the batter with a ladle.

Cook the pancakes until bubbles appear in the uncooked batter. Then, turn the pancake over and cook until golden.

Serve with maple syrup or honey with butter.

Also, top with any fruits you'd like.

Enjoy!~

(P.S. One thing to take note of, please do not try to fry the pancakes with butter, it'll turn out like the darker one in the picture)

How on Earth did I even come into this dish that sounded so pretentious -- Potage Parmentier?? What does it mean anyway?

It happened on one lazy afternoon at home in Penang. I sat down with my Mom at the garden, both reading on our own. I was supposed to read "Cloud Atlas", but my "pregnant shrunk brain" couldn't take the literacy and sophisticated writing style no more. So I switch to "Julie & Julia" which I simply took from my sister's shelf.

Potage Parmentier, according to Julie, simply means potato and leak soup. Julie had described how simple and easy to make this fantastic no frill soup, how she and Eric (her husband) cleaned the pot! That's how, I decided to try.

The soup turned out okay, not fantastic just okay. I used chicken stock as suggested so I didn't add any salt. But The Man thought I could have added some, it's still bland for his taste bud. But to me, it's just nice, I didn't like it too salty.

As we swept clean the entire pot (that is something good about The Man, even the food wasn't fantastic, he will always help me to sweep them clean!), we found there was a bitter after taste. So, I googled again after the meal. And I found out I'm not supposed to cook the green leafy part of the leek! Because, guess what, they're BITTER!

Dumb nook!

So now I know what's the problem, perhaps I shall cook it again next week? (^.^)

2014年7月18日星期五

Chickpea is one of my favourite food. I like chickpea so much I can have completely vegetarian chickpea sandwich (I'm generally a carnivore). I always order a chickpea curry from my favourite Indian stall when we go there for lunch during weekdays. And I adore the hummus dip that my uncle made for us to go along with potato chips.

Chickpeas!!! Yummy!!

Good thing they have never stopped pregnant woman from eating chickpeas. And I've tried to make chickpea pasta salad and chickpea salad recently. I love both of them but let me share chickpea salad here.

Chickpea Salad for dinner

Ingredients (I made a big bowl for myself as dinner):

Chickpea (~1/3 of a 400g can of chickpea)

A handful of green peas. If you like to have sweeter addition in your salad, just add more peas

Cook the green peas in boiling water for one minute, wash them with cold water to prevent further cooking

Toast the chickpeas in a pan for a few minutes

Dice ingredients 3-5 into small cubes

For the dressing:

Mix all the ingredients for dressing in a bowl and whisk them to ensure they mix well

Put all the ingredients in a bowl, throw the smashed garlic away from the dressing before mixing in. You can keep this in fridge to serve them cold too.

Variations:

If you do not like the strong pungent smell from onions, you could sauté them before adding into the salad. I've tried both raw and sauté, and I personally prefer the raw onions. It's all up to your preference.

Love the colours

Yum!

Most of the chickpea salads on the internet use feta cheese for toppings. But due to the fact that pregnant women should stay away from soft cheese, I referred a few recipes and came out with this version of my own. I would definitely love to eat the ones with feta cheese. But oh well, I'll just have to wait for a few more months.

2014年7月17日星期四

I think it's kinda funny and weird at the same time to see the changes. The first time I took the photo at week 17, was upon request of my best friend. She doesn't have the chance to see me in real person, so occasionally she would ask me how big I am, and I would take a picture of myself and send to her. And soon, it becomes a habit (even though I didn't try to keep it every week), I managed to take 8 so far.

The tummy really ballooned upon third trimester. I wonder how I could survive the 40 weeks pregnancy. How heavy would I be? How big can I be?

To be completely honest, I didn't feel very pregnant from first to second trimester. I carried on my life like usual, except for those delicious foods that I don't get to eat. But as time creeps into third trimester, I really feel "I'm so freaking pregnant!", and life starts to get scary. All the baby shopping we need to do... And all the money we have to spend. The most scary of all, all the wailings we're going to face.

I've moved on from reading a pregnancy book, to a nursing book. That's how fast the pregnancy feels!

I constantly tell my baby to be stay in my belly patiently. To grow properly, and also to give us some time to really prepare everything upon his arrival :P (The room is in a complete mess!)